


And You People Think I'M a Problem?

by Kereea



Series: Loki and the Spider [1]
Category: Spider-Man (Ultimateverse), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, not evil Loki, plot from ultimates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-29 01:10:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/999084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kereea/pseuds/Kereea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based off the comic in Ultimate Spider-Man where Jean Grey switched Wolverine and Spider-Man’s minds because Logan hit on her too much. I won’t give anything else away until the end…</p>
            </blockquote>





	And You People Think I'M a Problem?

 Loki had known something was amiss when he teleported next to Spider-Man and was punched in the face. Peter was usually such a nice boy, after all. “Spider!” And then he had to duck because he was being attacked.

 Spider-Man lunged at him, and Loki tried to remember if when describing various forms of brainwashing and mind-control last week, Agent Coulson had mentioned anything about _stopping it_. Thankfully, while he and Spider-Man were somewhat even strength-wise, Loki had centuries of combat training (that he was _never_ going to complain about again) over his friend.

 Loki tried to restrain him, only for Spider-Man to fight less like a rookie and more like a seasoned warrior. “What is wrong with you, you idiot?” On second thought, calling one’s friend an idiot was probably not a good idea. Wait—even if he was brainwashed, brainwashing or mind controlling did not grant combat skills. Those had to be learned, _truly_ learned.

 This was not Spider-Man. Loki was therefore suddenly less concerned about hurting him. With that little epiphany, he cast a spell and the shadows on the roof shot out like ropes to hold the fake down.

 “Who are you?” Loki demanded, lighting pale green fires over his hands. “Where is Spider-Man?”

 “What the hell are you, bub?” the imposter growled. Loki kicked him, and tightened the cords as the fake thrashed.

 “I’m asking the questions, moron. I don’t think the other Avengers would be happy to find their young part-time member missing,” Loki said, being careful not to mention his own part-time status. That would instantly make him less ominous.

 The fake went slack. “You’re that new guy. Thor’s brother.”

 Loki didn’t mind the association at all—most of Midgard knew what Thor could do and since before his recent debut as an Avenger they had never even heard of Loki outside of their woefully off myths, the relation was the best advertisement he could get. “Yes, I am.”

 “Thor’s a god or somethin’.”

 “Yes, yes he is,” Loki agreed pleasantly. Now the person seemed worried. Good.

 “And you’re a god too, right? Spider-Man’s got a _god_ mad at him?”

 Loki kicked him again, “Idiot. Spider-Man is my friend. Now, tell me where he is, or so help me I will put you in traction!” That was the threat Iron Man had used on an odd supervillain once—it had gotten a good effect then. It got a strange one now.

 The fake laughed, “You’ll only be hurtin’ your bud in the long run. As soon as Jean’s over it and switches us back-”

 Loki grabbed his neck and hauled him forward, “What do you mean ‘switches us back’?”

 “I’m in your little buddy’s body. Never would’ve guess Spider-Man wasn’t old enough to smoke. Couldn’t buy a pack.”

 Loki worked hard not to choke the man, since he didn’t want to hurt Peter’s body, “You tried to get cigarettes and inhale tobacco, which I understand is ridiculously addictive, in _someone else’s body_? What is wrong with you?”

 “I got put in a teenager, that’s what’s wrong!” the man argued. “Bet Spidey’s having a helluva time in my body…”

 “Who are you, where is your body, and where is this Jean so I can make her switch you back?” Loki demanded.

 “Wolverine. Maybe you’ve heard of me?” the fake chuckled.

 “You’re one of the X-Men. You and Hawkeye got in a massive public fight over something last month and it made the news,” Loki replied, glad to have a near-photographic memory. “You are a loose cannon with no regard for damage control or even _self-control_ , you have several of your own enemies who will no doubt be attacking Spider-in-your-body right now, and _you’ve been running around in Spider-Man’s body_ _for Asgard-knows_ - _how-long_!?!” One could only imagine the amount of bad press he’d managed to get for Peter. The boy could _not_ get a break.

 Loki really could sympathize with that last one, and decided that when he got Peter back and sorted out this mess he was checking him for every bad-luck curse in existence.

 “Huh. When you put it like that, I might have just ruined his life,” Wolverine muttered. “I know I pissed off some cops…”

 Loki glowered at him, “The only reason you’re not in pain right now is because I don’t want to have to take Spider-Man to the hospital when we get you both in your proper bodies.” After that was resolved, however, this imbecile was fair game.

 “You know, Jean’ll have to switch us back. She’s not the easiest person to convince,” Wolverine cautioned.

 “I’m not the easiest person to dissuade. We’ll see who wins,” Loki growled. “Do you know where your body might be?”

 “In Cali, with the X-Men,” Wolverine replied. “Unless someone like Sabertooth showed up for a fight, but what can you do?”

 “…how likely is that?” Loki asked. He suddenly felt like being very nice to Peter for a few months. After today, even _teasing_ would be just too cruel for awhile…well, maybe just a few _light_ insults here and there wouldn’t hurt…

 “Pretty damn likely,” Wolverine replied. Loki kept him tied up as he sat down. “What’re you doing?”

 “Finding Spider-Man,” Loki replied. Location spells were hard when people weren’t in their right bodies, but they weren’t impossible. He just needed to focus.

 “How long’ll that take?”

 “Until next year if you don’t shut up.”

.o.o.o.

 Peter Parker was having the day from hell. First he woke up as Wolverine. Then nobody believed he was Spider-Man with a mind-switch (they _lived with telepaths_. How hard was that consider?). Then he was beat-up by Cyclops for hitting on Jean yesterday (which _he_ didn’tdo). Now he was being chased by Sabertooth who wanted to cut him into little bits.

 He wondered if he could get Loki to check him over for being cursed. He sure felt like he was. “I’m not Wolverine! I got mind-switched! I’m Spider-Man!”

 He was, however, very glad that he was doing Wolverine’s rep some serious damage via running for his life. He just _knew_ this was Wolverine’s fault…since it sure wasn’t _his_.

 Wrong turn. Staring blankly at the dead end and still wondering what muscles to use to pop Wolverine’s claws, Peter turned to see Sabertooth. “Um, again, mistaken identity. I don’t know why I’m in here, but-”

 “Never thought I’d see you runnin’ scared, Logan,” Sabertooth chuckled. He started to walk closer, and Peter wondered how you got a funeral if you died in the wrong body.

 When a green flash lit the alley, Peter wanted to cry in joy. He started trying, just to ruin Wolverine’s reputation some more.

 Then he started laughing hysterically, because when you’re relying on a deity/alien/runt-giant sorcerer whose specialties are mischief and lies to save you, you’re really messed up.

 Loki shoved his body (which Peter assumed Wolverine was in) at him. “You two, stay put. You.” He turned to Sabertooth. “You have been hunting the wrong person. I will sort out this mess and you may return and hunt Wolverine _tomorrow_.”

 “What kinda hero are you?” Wolverine complained.

 “An awesome one,” Peter said, just to be annoying. He also wanted to stay on Loki’s good side. The trickster had looked furious when he had showed up, and Peter had gotten several interesting accounts from the Avengers of what sort of thing happened when Loki was pissed off.

 “I’m trying, anyway,” Loki said with a depreciative shrug. He turned back to Sabertooth. “Is that deal acceptable?”

 Sabertooth eyed Peter. “So…that’s really Spider-Man?”

 “Yes. You’ve been chasing a rookie teenager, not a veteran,” Loki replied.

 Sabertooth chuckled, “Nice try. I don’t do guilt.” He was promptly hung upside down and spread-eagle by shadow ropes.

 “Start trying,” Loki ordered.

 Sabertooth gave him a blank look before offering, “Well, for a rookie, he gave me a good run around.”

 “And the deal?” Loki asked.

 “Fine. I’ll wait until you sort this out to hunt down Logan. Kids are no fun to chase anyway,” Sabertooth huffed.

 With another flash, he, Loki, and Wolverine were in a den. Peter frowned, “You left him strung up, didn’t you?”

 “You seemed _traumatized_ ,” Loki said. “I thought it a fair punishment.”

 Peter was yet again reminded that Loki was weird and not _quite_ a good guy. He wondered how the hell in the superhero community _this guy_ was his best friend. At least in his civilian life he had Harry. Harry was _sane_ at least.

 Loki turned to Wolverine, “Where can I find this Jean Grey?”

 “You just teleported into the Institute,” Wolverine said slowly. “How do you even know where this pace is?”

 “ _Magic_ ,” Loki drawled. “Now, are you going to tell me, or do I need to cause a scene?”

 Peter gulped. The last time Loki had “caused a scene” was to distract Dr. Doom. It had worked great, despite the living statues of the dictator running around spouting lies about Doom involving things like kittens and Mickey Mouse (and then Doom had realized it was magic based and had sort of stalker-level fixated on Loki and it had all gone downhill from there…). “Causing a scene” for Loki meant “deal structural and possibly psychological damage, be noisy, bright, and impossible to miss with three miles, and irritate everyone that is not Loki Silvertongue.”

 Thankfully they were saved from Loki deciding to cause mayhem to get attention by Cyclops running up to Peter and demanding, “Logan, who are these people?”

 Peter pointed at Wolverine, “I think you mean him. Our minds got switched. You blasted me this morning and I ran away. Would the real Wolverine have done that?”

 “He _what_?” Loki asked harshly as Wolverine grabbed Peter, “You ran away? In my body?”

 “You tried to buy cigarettes in his,” Loki muttered, rubbing his temples.

 “What?” Peter yelled. If that got back to Aunt May…

 “Scott, what is going on?” A redheaded woman came in.

 Cyclops rubbed his head, “Jean, they say their minds were-”

 “So you are Jean. Switch them back, now,” Loki ordered. Cyclops turned and frowned. Peter guessed he was glaring at Loki, but it was hard to tell with the visor.

 “Why are you ordering her around?” Cyclops demanded.

 “I was informed she did this. I want it undone,” Loki said. He was wearing his petulant you-will-give-me-my-way expression. The last time Peter had seen it was during that fight with Dr. Doom, when Loki had ordered the doctor to stop hitting on him.

 Doom had been an idiot and refused by way of hitting on Loki _again_. Doom had been blasted hard enough and enough times to dent his armor to the point of immobilization (without actually hurting him much inside the suit either, to give Loki a little credit). Peter hoped Jean was smarter.

.o.o.o.

 Loki really hoped this woman had said no. He had now wasted over an hour of his time on this, and from the information he had, Peter had been stuck as Wolverine for _over twelve hours_ and _might need therapy_. Loki really, really wanted revenge on someone right now, and any opportunity would be good.

 Jean gave Wolverine an odd look, “The last person you’d want to be was Spider-Man?”

 “ _What_?” Peter whined. Loki quickly summoned a camera, it looked like one of Clint’s, and started recording. Blackmail was never a bad thing. Blackmail of “Wolverine” whining was wonderful.

 “I telepathically switched Logan with the last person he’d want to be,” Jean said. “To teach him a lesson.”

 “WHAT!” Peter yelled. Loki was annoyed too—this was apparently just a random bit of insanity, which made it _worse_ than anything actually premeditated, because Jean was _clearly_ going to go into an “I didn’t mean it” sort of thing.

 “ _Switch them back_ ,” the trickster ordered. Jean put her hands on her temples. A few seconds later, she sighed.

 “Okay. Did that do it?” She smiled softly. Loki wondered what in the name of Helhiem she was smiling about—this in no way made up for anything! He had called it: she thought nothing was wrong now!

 “I’m me!” Spider-Man cheered. He hugged Loki. “Thanks man. You’re the best sorcerer-god-maybe-alien best friend _ever_!”

 “Bit of a narrow category,” Loki quipped.

 “Hey, I had to leave my civilian best friend out of this; he kind of wins against you on account of, well, sanity.”

 “Naturally,” Loki agreed.

 “So, I guess you’ll be going, huh?” Cyclops asked. Loki wondered if the man was serious or just voicing a hopeful thought.

 “You’re kidding, right?” Spider-Man asked. “You just randomly switched his” he made an annoyed gesture at Wolverine “mind with whoever he wanted to be the least. What if it hadn’t been me? What if it hadn’t been a hero at all? What if you switched his mind with Sabertooth, that guy’d have killed all of you!”

 Loki nodded, “And let us not even entertain the idea of a _civilian_ in Spider’s shoes.”

  “Oh my god, you’re right,” Spider-Man said. “That would have-you know, that would probably been considered justification to wipe you idiots out! You guys want to know why people hate mutants? Some of you really act like bastards! I mean, what if it had been a civilian, they didn’t know what to do against Sabertooth even less than I did, and died? What happens then? You could have gotten someone killed, but their body would be alive because “oh, we put our mutant buddy in it!” What is wrong with you?”

 Loki put a hand on Spider-Man’s shoulder. “Spider, hysteria does not help our case.” He ignored the fact that he really wanted to cause these people mayhem and misery for awhile. “Yes, it was grossly irresponsible and we shall have Coulson bill them for your therapy. Don’t give me that, you’re getting therapy for this—at this point, _I_ might need therapy for this.” He glanced at Cyclops. “You’ll get the bill for that, too.”

 Jean frowned in shame that Loki found far too mild “Look, I may have overreacted and I’m sorry-”

 “ _May have_? _Sorry_?” Loki growled. “You just put a teenager through the ringer because you didn’t want someone hitting on you! Oh no, don’t glare at Wolverine, I may be the God of Mischief and Lies, but I can make someone tell the truth if I wish!” He obliterated every light in the room, leaving them illuminated by a few glowing green orbs of energy. “You _ever_ do _anything_ like that again, and you’ll know _just_ _what else_ I can do!”

 With that he grabbed Spider-Man and teleported them both out of the building.

.o.o.o.

 “I thought you said no to hysteria,” Spider-Man said. “So, uh, when can we go home? You just got us across town.”

 “Spider, I just had to teleport across the country to save your sorry self,” Loki replied. “So we’re waiting for Miss Potts, I asked her to bring a jet here.”

 “Loki, that’ll take at least an hour, even with Tony’s best tech,” Spider-Man said. “It’s only the Iron Man suits that can do the whole “ridiculously fast travel” thing.”

 “Ah,” Loki said. “Well, we just got off to a terrible start with the X-Men, so hero-ing in their territory is probably a bad plan, so…let’s go to a bookstore or something.”

 “Loki, I’m in costume and have no idea where my clothes are,” Spider-Man replied. “And…that last bit sounded so, so wrong.”

 There was another flash, and Spider-Man looked around. “Loki, where are we?”

 “Broom closet. Didn’t want anyone to see this,” Loki said, taking off Spider-man’s mask.

 “Loki!”

 “Shh, people could hear us,” Loki hissed, putting his left hand flat on Peter’s chest. “The sound barrier I’m putting up isn’t that strong.”

 “This is so weird,” Peter muttered as his costume morphed into jeans and a red button down. “Um, it still feels like my costume.”

 “It is; I just cast an illusion on it. Let’s go,” Loki said, before Peter grabbed his arm.

 “Ah, Loki, _your_ costume? And two guys walking out of a closet is kind of an attention getter,” Peter said.

 Loki smirked, and not only did his clothes change, but he did too. Peter stared at the petite blonde woman now grinning at him. “This is so wrong.”

 “Mortals are so weird!” Loki laughed in a high, slightly annoying voice. “Come on, Pete, let’s go down the road, I saw a carnival!”

 Peter groaned and surrendered to his crazy friend’s whims. At least _Harry_ was normal (which was why Peter would _never_ tell him his dad was a super villain—he needed _one_ sane friend).

.o.o.o.

 Peter groaned as the jet landed. Loki had ducked into an ally just before the carnival and turned into Lukas Blake, but had still insisted on going. Peter remembered that Darcy was taking him to Six Flags later in the week, so he must have been eager for something similar.

 He was pretty sure that the funhouse was not actually that awesome or creepy when it didn’t have a god in it, and he did not want to get started on the roller coaster seeming to make much bigger drops than it had.

 “So, what are you going to tell your aunt?” Loki asked. “Outside of the truth, because I have learned you refuse to do that.”

 “…Do you have a story in mind?”

 “How does this sound: you were mugged and a crazy person forced some hallucegenic drug on you-”

 “NO, Loki.”

**Author's Note:**

> While the X-Men seem jerky in this, it IS based off the Ultimates story, where a lot of people were jerks. Loki knows Spidey's ID because of a chronologically former oneshot.


End file.
